Roofworld

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘It’s rough at first,’ said Spice. ‘You get used to tearing ligaments and spraining joints, but after a while your body tones up and adapts. That’s our one advantage over Chymes’ men. Most of us have been up here much longer than they have. Their physical strength is no match for ours.’

  ‘But they have the advantage of numbers.’

  Spice lit two cigarettes and passed him one. ‘If you thought it was tough getting here,’ she said, quickly changing the subject, ‘you should try the Wren run some time.’

  ‘St Paul’s, right?’

  ‘It’s short, but it’s the steepest of all. It was the first run to be built, before anyone had cracked the physics of run construction. They chose St Paul’s because it used to be the site of a Roman temple dedicated to Diana.’

  ‘The moon crops up yet again,’ said Robert. ‘What’s our next move?’ He blew a jet of blue smoke into the frosty white air.

  ‘We go to the back of the station, where the tracks start, and collect the rest of our supplies.’

  ‘In the fifties this was one of our main bases,’ said Zalian, walking over to them. ‘Up until 1963, when British Rail saw fit to destroy the famous Euston portico and the adjoining hotel. Come on, let’s keep moving before the cold sets in.’

  From the back of the station, tracks from eighteen platforms fanned out in a crisscrossing network of tangled steel.

  ‘Can’t we be seen by people on the concourse below?’ asked Robert, stepping warily along an uncomfortably narrow concrete post running between two vast sheets of sooty glass.

  ‘No, the roof looks opaque from down there,’ said Zalian. ‘Anyway…’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Nobody ever looks up.’

  Ahead, Lee and Tony stepped onto a wide concrete square with a large metal electrical box in the centre of it. ‘Jay relocated the wiring in here and refitted it to hold emergency supplies,’ said Lee, wiping snow from the lid and producing a key for the padlock on its side. Throwing the box open, he pulled out an assortment of cables, knives, bandages, flareguns and—incredibly—a six-pack of beer and what looked like sandwiches.

  ‘Spice’s secret stash-place,’ Tony grinned, helping Lee to unload the box.

  ‘I thought it was secret,’ said Spice indignantly, catching a beer. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got others you don’t know about.’ Robert remembered her hiding place on the Planetarium roof.

  ‘You seem to have thought of everything,’ he said, popping the top of a freezing can.

  ‘Not everything,’ replied Zalian. ‘Otherwise we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.’

  Simon began passing foodpacks back along the line. Everyone was now beginning to feel the cold.

  ‘Do you think there’s any mileage in this “message” business?’

  ‘Even if there is,’ said Spice through a mouthful of stale ham sandwich, ‘it’s much too vague to do anything about.’

  ‘Come on, somebody must have an idea.’ A depressing silence fell across the krewe, as snow settled silently over the vast glass roof.

  ‘I’ve got one.’ Robert was standing at the end of the platform with his back to the others, looking out across the western side of the city.

  ‘Let’s hear it.’

  ‘No, you have to see it.’ He ran lightly back and grabbed Spice’s hand. ‘Come and look.’ He positioned her exactly where he had been standing, then threw his arm out at the cityscape. ‘What do you see, Spice? Think of the letters.’ There was a momentary silence as Spice scanned the horizon.

  ‘Oh, my God…’

  ‘What is it?’ Simon, Tony, Lee and the others crowded alongside. There in the middle distance stood a tall circular tower. Written around the top in enormous yellow neon letters, the word ‘TELECOM’ could be deciphered through the falling snow. After the final letter, there was a single gap before the word repeated itself on the other side of the column.

  Sunday 21 December

  Chapter 45

  Night Duty

  At a quarter to three on a Sunday morning, the softly lit side-foyer of London’s University College Hospital was peaceful and deserted. Seated side by side on the scuffed leather couch, surrounded by empty acres of muted pastel carpet, Hargreave and Butterworth waited for the return of the doctor. ‘What was I supposed to tell him?’ hissed Hargreave angrily. ‘Your father rings me in the middle of the night wanting to know why you’re in hospital, what was I supposed to say?’ He shifted irritably on the seat. ‘Now, I have the deepest respect for him as you know, one of the finest commissioners this country ever produced, a man honoured by royalty. I could hardly say that his son just fell off the top of a building, destroyed public property and put his colleague in the hospital with half a dozen broken ribs. You’re a great disappointment to me, Butterworth, really you are.’ Hargreave rose from the couch and paced the faded patterns of the carpet.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ began Butterworth. ‘The doctor asked me who my next of kin was.’

  ‘You didn’t have to tell him, boy. Having your father on my back is the last thing I need right now. I’m hanging on to this investigation by the skin of my teeth. I’ve done everything I can to buy more time. Do you realize what’s happening somewhere above our heads even as we stand here?’ Hargreave’s voice became taut and strangled.

  ‘Hordes of nutcases are trying to wipe each other out. We’re heading for some kind of massacre before dawn. It’s a very important moment in the alchemist’s calendar, the turning point of the sun. They’re all going to get supernatural powers before breakfast! Of course, they have to perform a bit of genocide in order to complete the transaction, but that’s black magic for you. Naturally, nobody can tell me where this transformation is going to take place. Meanwhile…’ He thrust his head forward until his face filled Butterworth’s startled vision. ‘Meanwhile, eight of the force’s finest, not counting Bimsley you understand, have been admitted to this hospital in the last hour nursing a variety of bizarre injuries. Right now there are two young ladies in Casualty telling the doctor that they were walking home from a Christmas party when a policeman fell on them from out of the sky. The report of the incident reads like a bloody Monty Python script.’

  Hargreave passed a hand over his forehead, exasperated. ‘The monitor tapes show footage of at least ten figures, none of them police, attacking each other with guns and crossbows. You yourself have undergone physical contact with these people, but are you any the wiser for it? Are you, be buggered!’ Hargreave’s face was pulsing a deep crimson, largely with the effort of remaining sotto voce in the cavernous hospital hall.

  Butterworth sat forward, wincing with the movement. The bandage around his shoulder covered a blue-black mass of contusions. ‘One of them mentioned a name, sir. An unusual name.’

  ‘Which was?’ Hargreave jumped forward, thrusting his huge red face beneath Butterworth’s startled eyes.

  ‘I’ve forgotten it.’

  ‘Well, I dare say it’ll come back to you when you return to the scene,’ said Hargreave, suddenly grabbing Butterworth’s bruised arm and hoisting him protesting to his feet.

  ‘The doctor has my X-rays. Shouldn’t we wait to see how I am?’

  ‘I can tell you better than X-rays.’ Hargreave poked Butterworth viciously in the ribs with his forefinger. ‘Nothing wrong there.’

  ‘I don’t feel well.’

  ‘Of course you don’t feel well. You’ve lost face. You’re ashamed of being a dim-witted little tit who couldn’t organize a bunk-up in a brothel. That’s understandable. You have let your commanding officer down. Which is why I’m giving you another chance, to make amends.’

  Butterworth’s heart sank to the bottom of his cracked ribs.

  ‘I’ve got every man we can spare up there in the field. There’s no one left to team you with. Anyway, you’ll be better off working on your own. There’s less risk of you killing anyone.’

  ‘But sir, I can’t go back up there by myself. If they see me I’m done for!’
<
br />   ‘Then I’ll tell your father you died like a man in the course of your duty,’ said Hargreave maliciously. ‘You might even be decorated posthumously.’

  —

  The police van squealed through the empty streets as Hargreave wrestled the wheel around one sharp bend after another. He’s gone mad, thought Butterworth, breaking into a cold sweat at the thought of returning to the heights above Piccadilly. The long hours, the unsolved crimes, the sleepless nights, they’ve finally gotten to him. He watched the shop fronts retreating in the rear window of the van, wondering if this was the last time he would ever set eyes on them.

  ‘If we don’t act tonight, we’ll have the deaths of God knows how many more on our conscience. Besides which, I am not going to let the police be made fools of again,’ Hargreave was saying as he mounted two wheels on the pavement and nearly took out a Belisha beacon. ‘Remember to use your radio if you get into difficulties. I’ll be close by. Don’t try to tackle anyone by yourself, understand?’ The vehicle tilted around the one-way system at the base of Tottenham Court Road and slewed diagonally across the lanes to one side. Hargreave suddenly stamped onto the footbrake, catapulting Butterworth into the front seat. ‘We are employed by Her Majesty’s government to serve and protect,’ said Hargreave through suitably clenched teeth, ‘and that, for once, is exactly what you’re going to do.’

  As the detective constable righted himself and checked his body for missing organs, Hargreave slid back the door and pointed up at the roof of the Centre Point tower. He had stopped the van by the ugly stone fountains that squirted feebly before the half-deserted office block. ‘That’s where they’ve been sighted. Up there. I’ve no more men available in this area. It’s up to you now.’

  Butterworth squinted upward, but failed to locate the top of the building through the falling snow.

  ‘There’s a night guard expecting you. Try to prevent yourself from dying. It’ll save me having to explain to your old man.’ And with that Hargreave slammed the van door shut and took off, skidding on the slick snow which had failed to settle on the tarmac of the empty traffic lanes.

  My God, thought Butterworth, pulling his jacket tightly over his chest as he climbed the steps to the main entrance of the office block, he doesn’t care if I get torn limb from limb, just so long as he wraps this business up tonight. He’s only interested in saving his tarnished reputation. Funny how he doesn’t volunteer to join me up there. He looked at his watch. Ten past three on a wintry Sunday morning. Supposing these rooftop maniacs really did develop supernatural abilities…that would really be something. Perhaps they would show him how he could get them as well. No prizes for guessing the first person he’d use them on.

  As Butterworth nodded through glass at the night guard and was admitted into the shadowed gloom of the entrance hall, his mind turned to thoughts of roaring log fires, throat-tingling brandies and goose feather eiderdowns. As he rose toward the roof in the elevator he thought of sultry tropical women with tawny limbs and languid smiles. And as he stepped out onto the snow-blasted roof of the West End’s tallest building, he thought about the possibility of being thrown to his death in the fountain a million and one floors below.

  Chapter 46

  Dream State

  She was no longer alone, of that much she was sure.

  Each dawn had brought with it the certainty of death, each day a stay of execution. Her twisted limbs no longer flinched in frozen pain. Starved and thirsty, her mind had freed itself from the pinching shackles of reality to float within an endless waking dream. Yet she was conscious of movement all around her. There were others here now, many others trapped and crying, some passively trussed with heads lolling to their chests in mute acceptance of their impending termination.

  Each evening he would come, his boots ringing on the steel rim above her head, his cloak cracking like an ocean sail. Silently he would peer into her face, searching her dark eyes for a spark of life, tenderly touching her frozen cheek before passing to the next crippled figure that lay wedged behind the humming neon letters.

  At night, the harsh yellow light penetrated the nest-filled corners of the vast steel structure. Sleep-deprived birds, their feathers beating clouds of soot, pecked at her filthy clothes to tear away loose threads and bear them back to the riveted gables of the tower. Then, in the darkest hour of her night, they had brought the coloured girl, the one whose tear-streaked face she had seen before in what seemed to be another age. She fought to reanimate the workings of her once active mind, to recall the face and understand its importance in the inexorable design of fate which had brought her to this windswept place of death.

  ‘Sarah!’

  For the briefest moment the image sharpened and there she was, looking into the smiling West Indian face, in the same house as her mother.

  ‘Sarah, wake up!’

  And then just as suddenly the rest of the memory flooded back, the pleading, the abduction, the anger of a man filled with the bitterness of betrayal and now the sacrifice, high atop the Telecom Tower. The voice was calling to her again. Why wouldn’t it let her sleep? The West Indian girl, tied to the sign not ten feet away, was speaking urgently.

  ‘Sarah, listen to me. It’s going to be dawn soon. They’re going to kill us. Can you hear me? We’ve got to get down from here!’

  Stupid girl, didn’t she know? There was no escape from a man like Chymes. If indeed he was a man. Slowly she allowed the deadening snow to seal away the pleading voice and return her to the safety of her dreams.

  Chapter 47

  Flight to the Tower

  ‘How many of them can you see?’

  ‘Six from this side, maybe seven, I’m not sure. It’s hard to tell in this weather.’ Zalian lowered the infrared binoculars and passed them over to Lee. ‘They’re between the letters. You can just make out their arms and legs. Bloody good camouflage job.’

  ‘If they’ve been there since they were captured, they’re probably all suffering from exposure,’ said Lee, refocusing the glasses. ‘It’s going to be difficult getting them down and moving them to safety.’ In the distance, the yellow letters of the TELECOM sign flickered hazily through the obliterating snowfall.

  ‘We have medical supplies,’ Spice pointed out. ‘I’d like to know how Chymes is planning to perform the executions.’ She held out her hand for the binoculars.

  ‘You’d think the tower would be crawling with guards,’ said Lee, handing them across. ‘I suppose there might be some around the other side.’

  ‘There are hardly any footholds on the whole of the central structure. It’s a perfect hiding place.’

  ‘Maybe Chymes’ men are stationed elsewhere. It would have to be somewhere with a vantage point to the tower. What have we got in the surrounding neighbourhood?’ Spice unfolded her roofmap and spread it out on the glass canopy as the others gathered around, huddling inwards. With the temperature plunging, it made sense for them to stay as close as possible to each other. ‘There’s Fitzroy Square nearby, but they’re all low-elevation buildings. You’re better off in Cleveland Street or Charlotte Street, on one of the taller glass office blocks. Ad agencies, sixties construction, mostly flat roofs.’

  ‘That’s where they must be, but I don’t get it.’ Spice stood straight and shook the settling snow from her hair. ‘A run from the tallest building in the area would still be too steep for them to reach the tower by, particularly without the use of our technology. No, they can’t be travelling into the tower via a run.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ve strung level lines from the tops of the offices in Charlotte Street. That would take them halfway up the building,’ offered Robert, pointing at the map with a numb forefinger.

  ‘It’s a sheer curved glass wall, Robert. There’s nowhere for the run to go. There’s nothing to attach a line to until you get near the top. There’s one other possibility. Is there a crane in the area?’

  ‘Yes, there is. Look, you can see the top of it from here.’ A short distance from
the Telecom Tower a tubular steel crane rose above the office blocks, its arm extending in a gravity-defying arc towards a darkly luminous ceiling of cloud.

  ‘Look through the glasses,’ said Zalian, returning from the far edge of the canopy. ‘There’s a line running from the tip of the crane to the tower. That’s how they’re passing back and forth. All they have to do is release the line at the appointed hour of execution and the tower becomes impregnable.’ He took the binoculars from Spice and threw them back to Lee. ‘We could try to storm the crane, but Chymes will be waiting for us. No, we’ll have to do something they’d never expect us to attempt.’

  ‘Couldn’t we try to gain access to the crane’s control room?’ asked Spice.

  ‘Forget it,’ replied Zalian. ‘That’s what he’d want us to do. Concentrate on the tower. We can’t enter it from within, he’ll have seen to that. Look at the outside. Including the roof, it has nine platforms, nine possible vantage points. Most of them are maintenance decks for the satellite dishes. Chymes will have men stationed on every level. But he’ll keep them back in the shadows, near the inner core of the building, where you can’t see them. He prefers a sneak attack to a frontal one. There isn’t a way we can land a single one of you on that structure without him seeing you coming.’

  ‘So what do you suggest, Doctor Zalian?’ asked Spice defiantly. ‘We’re going to freeze to death if we wait around up here much longer. And it’s going to be light soon.’

  ‘There is a way,’ said Zalian quietly. ‘But if this wind keeps up it’ll be highly dangerous.’ Naturally, this acted as a cue for everyone to start talking at once. He held up his hand for silence. ‘Lee, do we have enough haulers to go around? How strong are they?’